SO...I, THE SYNERGIZER

Untitled Part 3

Chapter 6.

If there is a God, I guess the worst thing you could say about Him is that He's an
Underachiever. — Woody Allen, "Love And Death"

The Kelty farm lay four and a half kilometers north along the same creek as his family's. The late October sun was already failing to warm his dark clothing and twilight promised to find him about two-thirds there and cold. He'd thought of going to his old bedroom for the caped felt overcoat, his family's thirteenth birthday present, and a few other mementos. And to at least see and embrace each of his brothers and sister. Sam had been married for nearly two years, and Fannie soon would be. The camaraderie of the Sybs would never match the memory of close caring of these...now alien folk. That sadness and his father's glare had driven him out of the house without pause.
The deep sigh created a fog of breath so he quickened his stride. He had galloped along this same dirt path on the creek's flat east bank on swaybacked old Mercury at least twice a week from the time he was big enough to grip the enormous withers tightly with his knees. Jakob and he had traded overnight visits often, but they still had to be home before dawn to work chores. Only wandering cattle took the path these days. That and nine years of weathering had made it rutted and treacherous in the gathering gloom, as well as aromatically soiling his shoes.
When it wound through groves of beech with thick undergrowth, he tripped over vines and cursed. The release felt good. Then he looked up and the feeling died. Here were the ruins of the Miller farm, broken chimney and the cellar pit once filled with tumbled bricks where Jakob had nearly died. No one had yet tried to make a go of it again. No doubt the creek, shallow and burbling here, still flooded out this wide low basin at least occasionally. And the good men of the Gemei in their certain biblical wisdom wouldn't build a dam to thwart the natural flow of water. He detoured to lean hands on raw stone and stare into the darkened pit of the past.
The sun's crescent bridged the west rise as he finally turned back onto the nearly invisible track again. By the time he found the dim yellow windows of the Kelty mainhouse, he was starved and tired. With his Syb suit he could have trotted the distance in half the time ol' Merc had taken on his best day. The habit of comparing the real world with this near-fantasy one was once more niggling at him, as it had from childhood.
And suddenly, irrationally, he wished he had his suit on now, for more reasons than comfort and speed.
Since it was now totally dark, everyone would be inside. He went directly to the wide front porch, up the cracked concrete steps. Unusual for any Amish farm to show disrepair anywhere, even the Kelty farm, which had lacked its patriarch for over ten years now and which had only two daughters and one son, without Jakob, to work it. A duty for the new Diener to attend.
His shoes clumped loudly on the warped wood to alert those in the sensor-less house; he rapped on the double doors and stepped back a pace to let them see him clearly in the hall's lamplight.
Aaron, the second son, opened the right panel wide.
"Come in, Thayer," he said and turned back. There was no surprise on his bare handsome face but only a studied melancholy.
They'd played corner ball often on his visits here, but never would again. Thayer could see the rim of the prosthesis riding under his left pantleg near the hip as Aaron led into the narrow hall. A far too common accident on Amish farms, probably a horse-drawn wheat thresher. And to have had the leg regrown would have meant months in a city hospital, with the English. Utterly forbidden exposure. Now that the stump was completely healed, it was too late for the regen technique that had given Thayer back the smaller version of his left hand. This was surely the cause, not Thayer's arrival, for Aaron's manner, so opposite to his once bubbly cheerfulness, .
Left into the big dining room, and the family sat at table. Ruth Kelty was now gray and old, the vigorous matriarch she'd been before her husband's death now gone completely. Edna and Ester, more plain and stringy with aging, sat alone to their mother's left at the long oak table. And at its head was Jakob.
Ironically, accepted back and not under the Meidung, he had again become the family's authority, as eldest male. He looked the part. The costume was de rigueur; the fringe beard newgrown full and still black. Again, as ever in their childhood, each feature of Jakob's face seemed a distinguishing one to Thayer. His glance darted naturally from the heavy brows, fine lips, and full squared jaw, to sharp nose, thick bush of still ungrizzled jet hair. And each feature was judged in his mind as perfection. Then automatically, inevitably, Jakob's black eyes stopped all scrutiny with the power of the mobile ideas leaping behind them. But never challenging in their rushing glance, only seeking to awaken more than chastise.
When he rose and pushed back his squeaking chair, that look froze Thayer on the spot. He was not a huge man, but gave that impression in the way he moved and the strength of his grip and backslap. Now, however, he took Thayer in a bear hug that he had to return or be crushed by. The others grinned at him, except for Ruth, who nodded politely.
"Welcome, home...brother." The same stentorian yet tranquil voice that garnered instant attention in any gathering.
Thayer's lame surprise at this greeting, in English, was preempted as Jakob raised a hand in protest.
"In this house there is no Meidung, and you are an honored guest. Sit and eat. We'll talk later."
Relieved, he mumbled and nodded at the others and sat where Jakob gestured. Only then did the droning of the fire behind him and the close aromas of the meal on the table become fully real. The heavy solidity of the scrapple's fried meat scraps vied with the vinegary blend of the chow-chow, pickled garden vegetables. A rushed meal, probably of leftovers, and the crusty dark-rye loaf was yesterday's. Jakob offered thanks briefly and formally.
"Helfet eich selwert," urged Ruth, using Palatine German for the first time since he'd arrived, and they did help themselves, to eat heartily but in silence.
He'd forgot how tasty and fulfilling such a crunchy fest could be when made from foods produced only meters away without fertilizer or pesticides and never frozen. And then Ruth brought out a fresh blackberry roll, the hot fruit-maple syrup compote layered into the baked spiral of sharp cheddar cheese dough. His favorite. It would have taken all afternoon to make.
"Seems word still gets around the Gemei quickly," he said with a smile at her. She permitted herself a slim one in return.
"I've been expecting you for some time," Jakob said solemnly.
However, to Thayer's relief and gratitude the house's master led the talk to mundane farm matters and district gossip all through the meal and group cleanup. After only an hour more in the parlor, he bade his family "Gut Schlaf," and waved Thayer upstairs ahead of him. The bedroom hadn't changed a stick in the ten years since he'd last stayed there. Two single trundle beds sat on their own homemade frames against the east wall to brace the single window. A small lamp table between and a cedar chest at the foot of each for bedding. A few pegs along the walls for all of Jakob's clothing. No closets or dressers. Amish had too few possessions to warrant them.
"It's good to have you in my home again, Thayer," was all he said before turning off the lamp and sighing back onto the deep featherbed beneath heavy quilts.
Thayer knew he dreamt of Sarah. They joined as two spoons beneath the warm covers, giggling over the jokes they could devise out of the term Zusammenliegen, the lying together that was an accepted part of courtship. And stuffing the down pillows into their roaring mouths at the smut they produced from the elder men's "pig in a poke" corollary to this custom. Through their cotton gowns their taut bodies reacted to the bundling before their spirits did. Happiness was complete because it was so narrow in need and immediate in goal.
And after months, when it had become obvious she was barren, as her biblical namesake had been, his family had made him agree she was not the best choice for a wife. And Sarah had married an Amish widower with four children and moved to Indiana, and everyone had been content but he...and perhaps she.
His feet touched the icy wood planks before he realized he'd awakened and sat up. His legs stretched out to replant his toes on the thick braided rag rug between the beds. The rising full moon painted a silver glow that ran like a wide white strip of tape across the lamp table top, rug, bed, and his left side. He shivered once then drew the quilts back over his legs and right side, but couldn't take his eyes off the smiling face outside. He was thinking of Samuel when Jakob cleared his throat politely, as if he had grown tired of pretending to be asleep while observing Thayer in secret.
"You ok?"
"I was dreaming of Sarah."
"The only girl you ever bundled with." A tinge of criticism.
"Ever heard anything from her? About her?"
"Why should I have?"
"Well...your grapevine in the communities."
"Was cut off before you left it, remember."
"Haven't got back into it again?"
In the shadow he heard Jakob lie back. "Sure. A little. I'm not fully welcome...yet. An embarrassment, as an evangelist, proselytizing on the screen. Only tolerated on occasion to give my personal Zeugnis at Sunday meeting." His single chuckle was harsh. "'A prophet is not without honor save in his own land.' Huh?"
Best not to crack wise about this mock pomposity. "And you're on your own here at the farm?"
"There are better things to do than mend these fences."
He stared out the upper sashed pane till Jakob spoke again.
"So why haven't you found another love, even gotten married?"
He snorted and smiled at the dark. "Same as you! Always on the move, dedication to the greater cause, that rot." That might be quite cutting, depending. His tone became more neutral, philosophical. "I guess truth is, once I'd left the Gemei and accepted my new life, I wanted it all. I mean, when we were both young we only joked about beauty and the ideal wife. Remember? Then we thought we'd have to take whatever was available in Amishland. Out in the real world, we...there are more choices. So why settle for someone with bucked teeth, or pendulous breasts, or a bod like a Bartlett pear—or some ignorant dolie. Wasn't that I didn't try to find her. Tried hundreds; but after a while I guess my ideals became imperatives. I couldn't settle for second or third best anymore."
"Perfection naturally eluded you, since it doesn't exist; and prevented your assuming that state of temporary insanity called 'romantic love' essential for most first marriages. Nicht wahr?"
Also a confession, if snide, for Jakob himself?
His use of the German made Thayer realize they'd been speaking only English to each other. Had his father been correct about him, and Jake? Had they truly changed so much that they were now more comfortable even thinking in what had been merely a second language their entire childhood?
Said Birdie, "'Romantic love is a form of temporary insanity.' Naromji, The Grave of Love."
This self-start didn't even faze him; expected with stress.
His turn to sigh. "A truth as durable as styrofoam cups."
The laugh was deep and sleepy. "Remember ol' Mr. Beachy?"
Thayer guffawed, then stifled himself against waking the others through the plyfab walls. "Ol' tomato nose?"
"Yeah, the one who grew all that corn but never seemed to sell any? We found the still and one of his bottle caches—"
"—and got drunk for the first time. Geez, what a hangover that first one was! The rest have been but faint shadows."
Jakob chuckled politely. "Not my first."
He blew a raspberry of disbelief.
"Thayer, I was the one who helped repair his still when it blew up that time before."
"What! You're kidding! It rained ethanol half klic away!"
Jakob's head rustled on the pillow as it shook. "Not a great success story for the Amish way of life. Him or me."
Thayer wanted to dodge this topic still, and trading the old tales they both knew was simply pleasant, perhaps important. "I passed the old Miller place tonight, of course. Hard to believe we were ever that dumb."
"Hey, we wanted to build a barbecue, like the rich other sort had in the urbs. We needed the bricks, and there they were."
"Sure, but we should've been able to figure the chimney had to be dismantled top down, not bottom up, f'r Chrise sakes!"
Thayer's uncertain fear at the slip of profanity was blown away by Jake's muffled glee, so he gratefully let a more jocund tone into his narration.
"I mean, there we were wanging away with those peen hammers, knocking loose bricks from the front and sides, never a thought about what would happen once we got past midpoint."
"Mmm...bro', I recall your saying something about us felling it like a tree. You were lucky, if you believe in luck."
"Well, I don't, Jake. You got more bricks out of your side faster than I did. I'm sure I would've been killed if it'd fallen my way. Don't understand yet how you made it."
"Hah! My catlike reflexes, of course. When it started to collapse, I was bending over to pick up a pair and heave them into the wheelbarrow. One or two of the falling ones just knocked me forward over the edge of the cellar wall, and I leaped by instinct. It was the way I rolled when I landed, left instead of right, that was the random chance—it saved my life."
"Oh yeah. If you'd gone the other way, the entire cascade would've landed right on you. I thought it had! Scared shit out of me. I ran over, screaming 'Jake! Jake!' into that dust cloud and tearing around the cellar opening. Could just see me coming over here to tell your...father how you'd been killed, everyone blaming me 'cause I was the one who lived. Couldn't know my relief when you climbed out, all covered..."
For Thayer, their hushed English talk, spoken into the room's moon-split ebon, had taken on an illusory quality, as though it were part of his dreaming, intensity and import diluted. Now this and their closeness faded instantly, as cold as the air.
He was surprised. This was still eating at Jakob. His left side was chilled, so he lay back under the heavy covers, wishing he'd taken the offer of a nightshirt.
"After you left, Diener Schlabach pressed pretty hard for why. Took it as a personal insult." Thayer paused for a reaction that didn't come. "I never said a word about your father, and why 'ol Schla didn't figure it out for himself is a mystery. Built-in blind spot, I guess. As if no one could seriously question the Order and its divine rules." He stared at the black ceiling, remembering Jakob's father, a bluff, simple, laughter-sotted man, and listening to Jakob's hard breathing, seeking an easy way past this. There wasn't any. "Jake, your father died because a twelve-hundred-pound horse fell on top of him, breaking his ribs, which punctured his lungs, and he drowned in his own blood. The doctors said getting him to the hospital even hours earlier would've made no difference. It happened too quick, too much injury; so we have nothing to—"
"And I suppose our bouncing him on that dray for sixteen kilometers—him spitting up blood and grunting with the pain of every jolt 'cause to scream hurt worse—didn't...my father died because the narrow-minded fools here, who worship God through tech obsolescence and blind obedience, wouldn't allow an ambulance to land anywhere on Gemei property! So their stubbornness became 'God's Will.'"
The sorrow and wrath drained from his big forced whisper and a certainty swept into it that made Thayer's already cold skin prickle.
"I intend to show them, and this entire country, the error of their ways!"
It was easy to follow instead of lead. "That's why you came back here?"
"I am no Martin Luther, Thay. And surely no Jakob Ammann. I have similar but wider, nobler objectives."
It was almost as if Birdie asked instead of himself. "And what part do you expect Thayer Albrecht to play in them?"
"You?" Jakob seemed truly surprised he'd asked.
"Isn't that why you said tonight that you'd expected me back for a long time?""
"Not really. It seemed natural you'd come back after I had."
"Gobby said...no. That's not it, Jake. I'm here as a Synergizer, not an Amishman. I can never be that again."
His throated laugh had the lightest edge of malice. "Oh, yes. I've heard...Glassman." His voice took on a singsong tint. "Hard as steel, cold as ice. Transparent in action and goal. Yet focusing blah, blah, blah. The Synergizer's paragon. Yeah, I'd heard that waste long before resigning the Magic Corps."
"Why, Jake, that smacks of jealousy." He added a laugh.
"Not really, kid; I just know you better. PR's for Citizens. My own rep is even better hype than that, but I intend to use it more effectively."
Said Birdie, "'To the Synergist reality is not spherical, nor smoothly wrinkled, nor continuously pocked. But rather, it is a geometric plane, fissured by crevices of discrete potentials for improvement equal in the Syb's judgment, till proved otherwise through polls and statistical analyses. Over this noise the Sybling orchestrates toward a harmony of discontinuous progress. And the degree of success determines power within the Syblinghood and the difficulty in chosen assignments.' The Manual Of The Synergizer Adjutant Corps, 2201 edition.
"The title of office extends historically from the science fiction novel, 'Rite Of Passage,' by Alexi Panshin, 1968. Here, a ship of nomadic spacefarers employed an officer called a 'synthesist,' who, in the Manual's terms, skated over the plane's crevices, inspecting each and correlating the advantages or disadvantages of their fusion, fission, or eradication to yield a more efficient gestalt within the ship's changing society."
Thayer was torn between wanting to squelch it and wanting to comprehend what it was saying. It seemed to be doing its own correlating to produce responses for him; a need readable to it in his mental-physiological set. Of course, that must be it.
"Jake, when I followed you into the city, I was frightened half to death. On my own for the first time. All that was left was rationality, and you. No more Bible verses and Amish dogma.
Without your help, I couldn't have made it, in either world. When you brought the results of my Citizens Exams and told me you were in the Corps, it seemed a betrayal of...us, of our pact of rationality. Telling me the truth about the Corps, and then recruiting me into it, was the greatest relief of my life. Justified the whole damned agony.
"So when you resigned, that horror started again. You made it all worse by refusing to talk about it. That still haunts me, right now. It's the main reason I worked so hard to be accepted into Syb Apprenticeship. We're the most potent force for positive change in the entire government structure."
"And the most isolated from the whole truth."
Said Birdie, "'Politics is the means by which the will of the few becomes the will of the many.' John Huston, In Time To Come."
That seemed more critical of than helpful to him. He longed to ask it whose side it was on, but that was a question for AI cannies.
"They say that's necessary for our objectivity. But if you want to cause real change, wouldn't working through us, with me, be the wisest approach?" He could hear Jakob sit upright on the bed.
"I get it. They sent you here because they think I'm trying to tear it all down, start a rebellion or something!"
Only a lie felt safe. "No, Jake."
"You're all wrong! That's not it!"
"I'm here mainly to find out what you have to do with those witch killings in this part of the country." Partially true.
"Witch killings? Nothing, of course!"
The sparring had worn completely through the surrealism of the moment. "Look, Jake, we got a 96 percent prob that you're an inciting node for such action through your followers. Remember, conspirators also get the five-chromo—"
"There's no such conspiracy in my fellowship! 'Thou shalt not kill.' Remember?" No arrogance, no joking this time.
But Thayer couldn't keep the sarcasm out. "I've seen you on screen. The way you attack both the sechumes and Occers, Christians excepted, of course."
"Sure, I'm preaching to Christians. They still form one of the largest minority blocs of Citizens in the country. And fundamentalist Christians, with their blind obsessions, are the easiest 'culters to sway into action. Not to kill, but to help reveal the truth about the Magic Corps. That's my only goal. I couldn't care less about any kind of witches! Any followers of mine killing witches are doing it on their own—and against my wishes!"
Said Birdie, "'Let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.' St. Matthew, 16:24, Bible, King James—"
"Damn you, shutup!" The anger went instantly, and for Jake's benefit he added, "Birdie, squelch."
Jakob's close-mouthed chuckle was cold. "They removed my perscomp at my debrief. Just as well. Would never be accepted here, of course. How much do you think you'd miss yours ?"
It was so unexpected, and upsetting, a query he couldn't reply before Jakob asked, "Are you online?"
"No. He's just overriding. Stress feedback."
"He?"
"It's...been inhouse since I entered the Gemei. And I told the local District Central I wouldn't be online at all."
"Very brave. I wonder if you'll stay that way."
He was merely being speculative, talking to himself, not Thayer. But it felt like an implied threat.
"Just what the hell, or should I say 'heaven,' do you really believe now, Jake? Right here you once said to me: 'Why should our lives be absolutely dominated by a strict, prejudiced interpretation of crazed fairy tales written 2,000 years ago to bolster the egos of Hebrews and the political power of the old Roman Empire?' I'll never believe you've reverted to those fairy tales!"
After several seconds, Jakob said calmly, "I've reverted only to the truth. It's true the Magic Corps in this country, and its counterparts around the world, did, shall we say, 'appropriate' political power two centuries ago. And they continue today to keep it out of the hands of the majority of Citizens in all but a few nations. With the help of you Synergizers, of course."
"You taught me why that had to be! After the Smart Wars—no. You were wrong there, Jake. It started before that collapse, in the late 1900's, when the best chance for worldwide democracy evolved, with the popular uprisings in Europe and Asia and the disintegration of the Russian and American Empires. The 'Cold War' ended and so did the antagonism caused by the expansionist philosophy of those...uh..."
Said Birdie, "Marxist-Leninist Communists, fostered by the repressive military oligarchies of the Warsaw Pact nations."
"...the Communists. People everywhere demanded democratic freedom, and most governments tried to give it to them."
Said Birdie, "'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Henry David Thoreau, Walden."
His startled pause gave Jakob time to jump in, a slightly acerbic tone coloring his words.
"But this experiment finally failed as certainly as did that Communism. Even in representative democracies, the Majority Will must seem to be enforced. And issues had become too complex for average people, who simply weren't adequately educated—presumably because they didn't want to be—to make the rational decisions necessary to solve the problems: primarily, as always, overpopulation; then other ecological crises; investment in basic sciences; simply planning further ahead than the next election. That's what made the collapse of the Smart Wars inevita—"
"Jake, what those undereducated peoples actually meant, when they fought and died for 'freedom,' was freedom from want and duty, of privilege without responsibility. They wanted only to be comfortable. And that's just what they've got! Except for us Amish."
His attempt at satire was wasted as Jakob retorted.
"Herner's told me that back then our so-holy ancestors hired mercenaries to keep outsiders away from the Gemei and their food supply. These thugs used guns, dogs, and electric fences, solar powered naturally, to do it. Supposedly no one got hurt, and our sort maintained their own purity. Typical hypocrisy."
He whispered back, "I've never heard that." Could Birdie confirm? He'd check later. But he was still intent on seeing if Jakob could or would rebut any of the rest of this justification of history, which was Syb dogma. He forced calm into his voice as he started again.
"So, the remnant staffs of the larger governments began to communicate and cooperate more closely than ever before. That is, those who could make the correct decisions due to their knowledge and training: statisticians, engineers, scientists, and those government advisors who understood them. That was the only way to ensure production and distribution of necessities.
"The world's single economy should be what drives our civilization. But national governments were always messing that up with artificial barriers like tariffs, which act against the free market, in the name of chauvinism. National borders should have gone first. Of course, the citizenry objected. Mustn't ever tread on their fairy tales! So the proto-Corps people realized they must erect a façade to both appease nationalism and cover up their efficient but emotionally unpalatable machinery...vanity, all is vanity.
"From that sub-government the Magic Corps was born. Worked so well, for instance, it took little time for everyone, except the crooks, to accept 'tronic credollars as world currency and do away with hard currency—and all the opportunities for cheating, stealing, and crime that went with it. And they took advantage of the majority's beliefs in the Occult to do it. By passing themselves off as psychics or zealots they didn't have to explain fully, rationally what they were doing."
Said Birdie, "'If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove.' Matthew 17:20, Bible, King James Version."
Thayer almost quoted this, then decided to finish quickly. "Took several decades to firm up the subtle power structure required to influence the educational institutions to aid in the PR backing needed. Some even chose to help knowingly. And the 'Free Press' had already been giving the people what they wanted, easy amusement for difficult truth, for many decades. Bread and circuses.
"With the drastically reduced pop sizes and comp-automated production of most industries, material wealth was at last generally attainable. Most people became content as Citizens on the dole of that wealth. Most people still are, and will always be."
Jakob seemed to wax almost flippant. "Yes. How sad. Many of them knew all this back then and do now. 'Modern man will tolerate any tyranny as long as he is well fed.' Bertrand Russell?"
Birdie confirmed as Thayer bristled. "It's not tyranny; it's oligarchy, the true form of any sizeable government. There's no oppression here. We're all free to do whatever we can and want to do—so long as we don't try to wreck the system. That has always been the case in any society not a pure police state. The selection process is simply better organized to prevent waste and harm to the individual or society. The essence of the Offer we Sybs make."
"Just as this isn't another form of communism," Jakob said neutrally, as if he were lecturing.
"Of course not! Sure, it's centralized control to a high degree, but again that's always the case in all societies, including free market. They're founded on laws, especially the laws of statistics and rational thought. And that's the ultimate foundation for economy, since it's technology that in turn fuels economies—while your precious beliefs only stagnate progress."
"Non-falsifiable beliefs are the most important products of human thought, Thayer. They give us the ethical directions for a good life. Otherwise, we'd be just another part of that technology, another cog in its wheels, if glandularly unpredictable."
Said Birdie, "'There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.' Thomas Alva Edison, the placard in all his works."
Now social criticism it was giving!
"Most Citizens are that, anyway, Jake."
"Ok. Let's hear the rest of the Corps line. How most people are pragmatically worthless. Consume everything; produce only feces, babies, and taxes. How they're just consumer units for government care by that minority sufficiently gifted and trained to efficiently operate technology."
Said Birdie, "'My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. Whenever a new one appears the average man shows signs of dismay and resentment.' H.L. Mencken, Minority Report...the book, not the cinema."
Again instantly furious, he grated, "Birdie, isn't it about time you had an original thought?"
When Jakob asked, Thayer repeated the quote, then continued. "Sure, that's the official view of the Syblinghood. It also holds that all human beings have rights, privileges, and so must have duties and opportunities thrust on them, as a test. The potential may be in anyone. So the Offer must be made, always."
"Yet, with Sybs' help, the Magic Corps maintains a restrictive hold on power, and you treat this as a nation of...pets." Jake was making a statement, probing.
"No! Most Citizens choose to be that. But the Offer is always there to join us." As with Alice Hopper. "If they can discover the truth by themselves, with the Exams or later on their own, then those persons can join us, if they want."
"And do what, Thay? Spend the rest of their lives shunting from one Governor's Mansion to another in search of perfection, or living undercover in some pod like the engineers, scitypes, and other Adjutants do now? There are some capable people, like me, who don't want to be string-pullers. Who find no dignity in it. Who want to give it back to all the people."
"Dignity? Human society has always given that only lip service! Like equating worth with material wealth. That's why Citizens are allowed to own everything but the land now. Giving the people what they need, making them earn what they want. But true dignity comes from within."
"Then give light to the people and they will find their own way." Jakob grunted. "Sorry. Stealing your Birdie's act."
"Is that what you want to do? Go Luddite and smash it all to give Citizens something they think is important to do?"
"I believe, if the Citizens were adequately educated to the truth, and they can be, they could at least be given the choice of continuing with this system openly or voting to alter it according to some majority consensus."
"Jake, if that were to happen, the whole damned thing would collapse as utterly as it did in the Smart Wars. You'd risk that on people's fickle desire to be educated? Only highly trained groups, working with the most advanced comp systems, can come close to understanding what the hell's going on out there. And even then they need us Sybs to help knit it together!"
"That is your opinion. But, as I said, I don't want to smash anything. Maybe things are being run the best way. I only want the whole truth about it brought out." He became sardonic. "Anticipating your next question, my personal motive is to end the affiliation of church and state, return to total separation. Only then can I go on live screen, as the most popular evangelist in history—not convicted of any felony—and knock the props from under this...house Amish built on sand. The other religions can fare as best they can, as always."
His snorted laugh only underlined Thayer's amazement.
"What! Jake, Jake. You're more interested in revenge than justice. Besides, you know how often someone tries this. The Corps's true role is such a worn joke now that you'd just be crying wolf again. No one will listen, or care. You'll only discredit yourself thoroughly. You'll accomplish nothing else."
Except perhaps to stop the witch killings by his followers.
"Oh, I will do all I want and possibly much more. You see, the whole truth about the Corps has always been its best kept secret. Outside the Synod's Wizard Council, only the Magi know. Remember, I was on the Council for years. That's why they're all a dither, and why they sent you, little brother."
Thayer sighed long and deeply, eager and afraid. "Ok. What is this truth? Or do you have good reason to hide it from me?"
"No, no. Quite the opposite. Perhaps I could use your help. The high success of the Corps has depended for the past century not only on its expertise and your Sybs's aid. Since then, its compnet has had elements within it that were not only allowed but encouraged to go canny— with no organolinks. The Corps broke its own laws. Its computers think....and they know they think!"
His universe twisted and split like rotten fruit. Suddenly, it fit like the perfect jigsaw puzzle, and he the missing piece.
"As you said, Thay, even trained groups can come only close to understanding what's happening. Control, especially in global banking and basic research, requires not just advance comp systems but full AI competency!"
Finally, breath came again. "But how do they manage the rate difference in thought...what forms the failsafe organolink...what if one of the canny elements were to go hostile?"
Within Jake's tone was a grim smile. "Why, then, the entire net might just go canny and turn hostile. Become Terminators but without robot bodies...wouldn't need that anyway. Catastrophe. Total and final. But they do manage, have so far managed, barely adequate control. It's a tightrope walk at best. I know. I helped keep the balance for six years."
He leapt at a final straw. "And where is your proof?"
The sorrow and frustration were palpable. "In my perscomp...and I must get it back."
"Oh." This was the truth Magus Styger sought. Then why hadn't he forewarned Thayer about it, about something this momentous, and prepared him for this certain shock?
"I'm sure now. I must have your help, Thayer. You have your goals, and I have mine. We need each other."
Thayer twisted his eyes from the black to the silver stream, at last got up and stood arms' reach from his lost brother.
"If there's any chance this is true, I have no other choice."
Said Birdie, "And I think—I believe, together, we can do it."